SINGAPORE: Annoyed that loansharks kept interrupting his sleep,
a food distributor diverted their phone calls to the hotline number
of the Sengkang Neighbourhood Police Centre (NPC). As a result, an
innocent policeman bore the brunt of a loanshark’s wrath and got
verbally abused with vulgarities on March 27.
32—year—old Ng Leng Huat was sentenced on Thursday to three
weeks’ jail in what is believed to be the first case of its
kind.
Sergeant Ahmad Yazid Mohamed, who was on duty that day, first
received an overseas call from the loanshark at around 1.20pm.
Sergeant Ahmad identified himself and asked the caller to meet the
police for assistance.
However, the caller became agitated and started to hurl
vulgarities at him before hanging up. The caller phoned again five
minutes later and, this time he revealed Ng’s NRIC number to
another police officer.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Paul Wong said Ng had earlier
received countless calls from loansharks, preventing him from
sleeping. Because of this, Ng decided to divert the calls to the
NPC. DPP Wong pressed for a deterrent sentence.
Ng could have been jailed up to a year or fined a maximum of
S$5,000.
—CNA/ac
